“There.”

Bell narrows his eyes, heads them both in that direction, left of a giant heavy roller and through a gap in a broken wire fence. Other people pass in and out of the area. A corrugated red storehouse, with a newer silver tin door, stands surrounded by yellow barricade tape.

People are moving around it, in suits and uniforms. Through pinhole rust in the walls, Emma can see the lightning flare of flashes going off inside the building.

She swallows hard. The night is clammy on her skin. New-made ghosts live inside those walls, and now she’s not sure she wants to know them.

Bell touches her arm—there. By the refracted light of the floods, Emma can see the furrows in Cooper’s brow as he peels off a set of latex gloves.

“Do we go to him?”

“No.” Bell fixes her in place. “We wait. He’ll see us.”

He’s right. Cooper scans the site as he talks to a county officer. When his eyes hit Emma and Bell, they stop.

Emma gets a wash of guilt, talks out of the side of her mouth. “Let me take the blame for this. You can do a set-pick off me, say I made you drive—”

“No way,” Bell says. “I initiated this. I earned it.”

Cooper approaches in his own good time. He does not look happy. “What are you doing here?”

Bell stands straight. “We decided to come, sir.”

“You decided to come.” Cooper mashes his lips into a zippered line. “I gave you very specific instructions—”

“We know,” Emma says. Suddenly she understands why this is important. “But we need to see it. And you need us.”

“I don’t need a pair of unqualified, rule-breaking teenagers haring around this crime scene—”

“That’s right,” Emma says. “We’re teenagers. And these victims are all teenagers. We can tell you more about them in five minutes than an adult officer would be able to tell you in an hour, just by looking.”

Cooper doesn’t seem to know how to reply to that. He turns to Bell. “Are you on board with this? Did she make you—”

“She didn’t make me do anything,” Bell says calmly. “I made my own choice on this, sir. Lewis is right. We’re as much a part of this case as anybody else. And we might see things from a different perspective.”

Emma finds her voice has gone imploring. “Mr. Cooper, you’re hunting a killer of juveniles. All the evidence suggests the perpetrator is a juvenile himself. We’re the only juveniles you have. Let us help.”

Cooper tongues his back teeth, still frowning. But the frown looks speculative now. Finally he makes a deep exhale. “I am gonna get my ass kicked halfway to Sunday for this.…”

“We won’t tell,” Emma blurts.

“Somebody will,” Cooper says darkly. “All right. You can view the scene. Tell me what you see.” He stops Emma with an upraised palm as she opens her mouth. “You do exactly what I say. Exactly. Can you follow instructions this time, Miss Lewis, or am I going to have to make you wait out here?”